You have been using EPM2007 for a while and have very many projects in the system. It now time to start thinking about archiving your projects. If you don't archive your completed projects on the regular basis then, over time time, the number of projects in the Draft and Published DBs will build up. This may start adversely impacting the system performance. It is important to have a ‘rigid’ business process in place for archiving projects. Hope this helps if you are in the process of setting this up. If on the other hand, you have one in place, then hope this helps in strengthening your existing processes.
The out-of-box (OOB) Archiving process, is basically ensuring that your projects are copied/retained in the Archive DB and removed from Draft/Published DB.
You may wish to record the name of the Projects being archived with the URLs in a custom List within PWA or an admin SharePoint site. See example below. This is so that users can still access the project workspace(s) after the project schedule has been removed from the draft and published DB.
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Here are some recommended EPM Business Processes for archiving projects (without using automated EPM partner Add-on/enhancements). I will cover the custom automated solution (for archiving & restoring project schedules and associated workspaces) later in the following post.
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The actions undertaken by Project Managers and Administrators are indentified below.
Set Project Attribute [PM]
| - PMs to set appropriate project attribute e.g. Archive. Note: Appropriate Project Centre view(s) can be created to show projects that are ready for archiving. Include fields e.g. Owner, % Work Complete, Project Status, Checked out, Check out by, Last Published etc. This view will be used by system administrators to assist with the archiving process. |
Ensure project tasks and assignment are 100% complete [PM]
| - Set remaining work and durations as ‘0’ for tasks and assignments that are deemed to be completed but have not yet been marked as complete. |
Set task field ‘Publish’ value to No [PM]
For all tasks that are marked as complete, set Publish flag as No.  (click picture to enlarge) This will ensure that completed tasks/assignments do not appears in users MY TASK and MY TIMESHEETs if the archived project is ever restored. Refer to previous post regarding this. |
Save and Publish project [PM]
Save Enterprise project as mpp file [PM]
| I would recommend that Project Managers include this step as part of their project closure process. Save Enterprise project as mpp file within the associated project workspace along with other documentation. |
Confirm projects are archived [Admin]
| - Within Manage Queues, review any errors than may have occurred during automatic backup overnight. - You may wish to also confirm that the project(s) have been archived by checking the projects available to restore i.e. PWA > Server Settings > Administrative Restore. |
Record project name and associated project workspace URL in the Archive projects list previous setup [Admin]
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Finally, delete Project from the Draft and Published DBs [Admin]
| Take due care when selecting the projects to delete. Do NOT select the option to delete the associated workspaces. |
The above archiving process is not to be confused with SharePoint Farm or SQL Database backup for the purpose of disaster recovery.
Note: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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